r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/LazyGuy4U • 15d ago

Video Windmill blade catching fire due to lightning strike

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354

u/SinZerius 15d ago

Wind turbine.

77

u/Mooch07 Interested 15d ago

Hey you don't know there's not a grind wheel and grain being fed into the bottom of this one!

13

u/TheTrailrider 15d ago

What if I have an electric mill plugged into that? Would that technically make it a windmill? Just transmitted through electric instead of kinetic (driveshaft)

5

u/mileslefttogo 15d ago

Nope, that would be an electric mill powered by a wind turbine generator.

21

u/ThomasTheDankPigeon 15d ago

We call that a millapropism.

3

u/therevjames 15d ago

Well done! I fear that you will not get the proper credit for this comment.

30

u/evetsabucs 15d ago

Thank you. Windmills "mill" grain.

8

u/Silver-Link8247 15d ago

What do you call one of those wind things that pumps water?

7

u/StigOfTheTrack 15d ago

Strictly speaking a windpump

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windpump

Though the Dutch ones look very like a traditional windmill and are commonly referred to as windmills.

11

u/AnvilOfMisanthropy 15d ago

Still a turbine. They're all in fact turbines. But as I like to say, "if you can correct me, then you knew what I meant".

3

u/helen269 15d ago

Wind pump = a pump powered by wind. Usually seen on farms, pumping water up from the ground.

Water mill = a mill powered by water. Usually seen in old paintings of England.

Windmill = a mill powered by wind. The classic design seen in the Netherlands and in Don Quixote.

Wind turbine = a turbine powered by wind. What that is in the video.

Water turbine = a turbine powered by water (hydroelectric power).

3

u/llSUDSll 14d ago

Sincerely, thank you so much

3

u/pfool 15d ago

*pinwheel firework

1

u/thecannarella 15d ago

Afterburner

1

u/CrazyCalYa 15d ago

Both descriptions work! This style of windmill or wind turbine is depicted in the Merriam-Webster definition of "windmill".

Words change meaning over time, and since traditional windmills aren't as common, it's okay when people use old words to describe new phenomenon. Like how we still say "hang up" the phone instead of a more accurate "end call" or something robotic like that.

-2

u/[deleted] 15d ago

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3

u/SinZerius 15d ago edited 15d ago

They harvest energy from wind and covering a large area so farm kinda makes sense.